I'm on a "Jag"

From the dictionary:

Jag –noun
1. a period of unrestrained indulgence in an activity; spree; binge: a crying jag; a talking jag. (In my case a knitting jag.)

"Unrestrained"? It does seems like that at times that I just can not help myself. I have certainly have been on a "jag" with my XXX elongated stitch. Originally I was looking for a good edge for this sweater I've been working on for a while and I was just not satisfied with any of the stitch combination's I tried. I would put the sweater down and let it rest, thinking that it would come to me sooner or later. Then I remembered this old stitch and it worked perfectly for the edge, it lays flat it has just enough texture and it's easy to do.


Last winter I was doing a lot of felting and when I got tired of knitting things and felting them I decided to go to a thrift store and start buying old wool sweaters and felt them. What's the difference I knit it or somebody else knit it, the knitting police won't get me. I got this real nice wool man's sweater and washed the heck out of it and it felted really nicely, it's soft yet dense and it just had a really nice feel to it. I started to cut it apart to see what I could make out of it and suddenly had a vision.


I had this very nice sock yarn that looked harmonious with the colors in the original sweater and I picked up stitches right into the felted original piece. Like this:

It was a wee bit small on me so I added gussets, threw in a few short rows for shaping and here is what that looks like:


So this is what started my "Jag" with the xxx elongated stitch. Then I thought in case I forget how I do this maybe I'll just make a video and then post it on YouTube and that way if I ever want to do it again I can just watch my video.

elongated stitch XXX zig zag



I now have added this stitch to several other projects and it does not look like I'm stopping. I will show several other projects to you at a later post. Several people have asked me where I got this stitch? And I am not sure, what I am sure of is that I did not invent it because there is nothing new in knitting I am convinced that somewhere on the planet at one time or another it's been done by another knitter. Then I remembered this little sweater my aunt had and was showing me the stitch she used many years ago. Bingo! There it was the xxx elongated stitch and a whole sweater knitted in it. I guess she was on a jag too because she showed it to me all so many years ago when we visited her in Budapest.



I was teaching a class at Needle Points West the other day and showed a couple of projects with this elongated xxx stitch and my students wanted to learn it so my jag may be catchy.


Written instructions for the xxx elongated stitch:
It is done in all knit stitches (garter stitch) 6 + 1 = 7 stitches

(but you can also do it as 6+2=8 use your imagination. Maybe only cross 2 stitches instead of 3 and it becomes 4+1=5 or 4+2=6 etc.)

Set up row: (rs-right side or public side) Knit
Row 1: (ws - wrong side or inside) k3, *yo, k1,* to the last 2 sts. & k2.

(the first 3 and last 3 stitches are to stabilize the stitches but this is optional you can skip it or only do 2 sts. or as many as you would like, I was doing 3 sts. on each the beginning of the row and the end of the row)

You have now doubled the amount of stitches on the needle with all the k1, yo's.

Row 2: (rs) k3, drop the yo, *slip 6 stitches off the right needle dropping the yo's and making 6 elongated stitches. Slip those six elongated sts. back to the left needle purlwise (tip to tip). Knit the 4th st and lift it over the first 3 sts, knit the 5th st and lift over the first 3 sts, knit the 6th elongated stitch and lift it over the first 3 stitches, and knit the first three sts., k1*

Row 3: (ws) Knit
Row 4: (rs) Knit
Row 5: (ws) same as row 1.

And repeat.
If you don't get it watch the video on YouTube my user name is BananaKnits:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkbcTkiA9gs

Gauge is for "suckers" my mother told me so...

I absolutely love this YouTube video because it just proves my point about gauge. I believe this lady's name is Kelley Petkun and she is the owner of Knit Picks and a long time experienced knitter! In this video she claims that she knitted a gauge swatch and she was right on gauge. She is knitting in the round and cast on the amount of stitches that her gauge told her to do a 32" circle. She knits a few inches, 260 stitches I believe and if I may say that is already a lot of time invested! Then she takes the stitches off the needles to try it on. Great idea I am a firm believer in trying on but I would rather knit from the top down and make adjustments as I go a heck of a lot more efficient. Also my mother had a method to cast on what I call "gauge is for suckers" it is no swatching no gauge measuring any needle size any yarn size and it works every time. It's like magic! Each time I demonstrate this people are amazed.

In case you can not see this video here is the exact link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grNyHM_WD-8&feature=channel

Road Trip to visit Cat Bordhi

I love learning more knitting techniques from other knitters. Cat Bordhi is wonderful inventive and talented knitting teacher / author has invited knitters to come an join her on "her" island. She lives in the Pacific Northwest in the State of Washington on an island in the Puget Sound. She organizes a retreat where she has about 25 students come to Friday Harbor and knit and share and learn for a whole week.

It took me all day to get here but I think the travel is well worth it, here are some pictures of the journey here. I always have an "airline" breakfast which consists of Starbucks coffee and trailmix with tomato juice. Oh the good old days of airplane food who ever thought I would miss it?

Cruising and Knitting & Teaching on the High Seas...... Nirvana

Lots of exciting news will tell you more soon.
October 2010.

Life is great!

October 23, 1956

This date I always will remember and each year I post about it because I don't want the world to forget.
An event that changed my life!

Hungarian Revolution of 1956

And yes the tears and sadness still come and the memory still hurts even after all these years.

XXX ZigZag Cross Over Stitch

I am progressing nicely with this little sweater. The color is wonderful and each time I try it on it seems to fit nicely. Actually I kind of do not want to take it off so I am hopeful that this will be a garment that I will wear a lot. For our climate here is Southern California this short sleeve open sort of jacket / sweater is perfect, just to take the chill off the shoulders. It would be a great addition to a fall or spring wear also.

I have been trying to figure out what kind of edging to do on this and I think I've got it. I first wanted this to be all garter stitch to show off the yarn and I'm pleased of the way it looks. I really do like the all knit garter stitch it gives a nice texture and hangs nicely for me. There is no curling to worry about and it's an easy knit. I knit Continental so the knit stitch is more efficient and goes faster for me than the purl stitch.

I wanted to stay with the knit stitches and looked through many different books of "edgings" but I just could not find anything that was easy, not much counting and that was knit and looked good. Then I remembered this XXX Zig Zag Cross Over Stitch. I am not sure where I learned this who showed it to me but I kind of parked it in my memory for just such a project. It may have come from one of Barbara Walker's books. That woman is so clever.

For future references I made a little YouTube video to show how I do this easy breezy edging.

Saturday notes

On Saturdays I try and not plan too many things on my calendar sort of letting myself relax and catch up with things I may have postponed during the week. This Saturday I am working on my top down sweater pattern that I will be teaching at Compatto Yarn Store in November.

3 Wednesday afternoons starting
November 4th, 11th & 18th. 12 to 2 pm.

Top down sweaters are such fun to knit because they kind of grow and you are able to try them on as you knit along making any adjustments that might be needed to fit your particular bumps or lumps. Oh I mean my particular lumps or bumps you or the person you are knitting for may not have lumps or bumps but may have a short waist and long arms or short arms and a long waist. You know what I mean.

When knitting a sweater the conventional way in pieces you usually start in the bottom of the back, then you knit two fronts and maybe then you could kind of try it on to get some sense in how this garment may fit. If there are any adjustments to be made you practically have to start all over again and this is why so many knitters give up.


The top down class I teach is to give the student an understanding the theory and structure of this simple and comfortable style. Most of all permission to make changes to the written pattern. My pattern is like a recipe, you can of course follow it exactly but you can add in your particular changes. Most patterns in my opinion are just a suggestion or a general outline of what to do, unless you are knitting a pattern like Hanne Falkenberg's Ballerina which is knit side to side and you better follow every single instruction. Then after thousands and thousands of stitches and hours and hours of knitting you sort of hope it will fit.

Sometimes it fits and other times it does not. The first Hanne Falkenberg "Ballerina" I knit turned out ok. Oh wait I had major problems figuring out the pattern not just the rhythm of the designer and instructions but I could barely see the print . The tiny font they used to save paper without any "breathing" spaces letters kerned as close as possible as if they were trying to fit everything on one sheet of paper. Oh no not as if they actually did fit everything on one legal size page. But once I kind of got the rhythm of the designers intent I was finally able to figure it all out and finished the sweater.



However I don't wear this sweater very much because it's back heavy and has a tendency to pull to the back and I end up tugging on it to fit right. So it becomes a tug of war when I wear it. But it has come in very handy to demonstrate to my students how adapting a style to your own body and comfort is very doable and for me necessary.

I modified the Ballerina, calling it the Banana-Ballerina. This version looks about the same but it's a bit longer in the front giving it more weight in the front and I took out a couple of panels in the back making the back lighter. Now this sweater sits on my shoulders nicely there is no tugging and is a comfortable to wear.

Here are some class projects we made for top down classes I did in the past. We knitted a small version of the sweater we had in mind and my little Teddy was a perfect size to knit for but once you learn the theory and the basic concept on how to knit this sweater you can knit any size you want.

This little sweet sweater was knit by Sandi Kagan, this was the first project she ever knit without following a pattern. She was amazed that she was able to do this easily after the first session of the 3 session class I was teaching at Amano Yarn Center.

My Bugga obsession continues....

Those ladies at Sanguine Gryphon are very clever, they have managed to keep their yarn exclusive and hard to get? How and why this yarn phenomena continues I don't know. There are thousands of small yarn "dyers" out there begging people to buy their products and then there is Sanguine Gryphon and their "Bugga" and now "Skinny Bugga" line. Yes the colors are wonderful all named after bugs and creatures and yes the yarn feels very nice but there are lots of other yarn that feels sort of the same way but somehow they manage to keep this yarn so exclusive that you feel like you are lucky to be able to buy a skein or two.

Never mind trying to pick out the colors and the yardage you want, you just sort of grab for whatever colors you can get. Crazy isn't it? They post on Ravelry.com when they will put yarn up for sale on their web site and at that given moment you can start looking at the pages and if you are lucky enough to see one of the skeins without a "SOLD OUT" sign you just grab and hope you can complete the purchase.

The "Bugga" base is unique because it's 20% cashmere 70% wool and 10% nylon, it's actually sock yarn it seems that nobody else is using this same base. I wonder why not? I would think that after seeing all this success the Griffin girls have surely some body would be jumping on the ban wagon I don't know of any. If you do let me know. There are other sock yarns that have 10% cashmere but somehow that 10% extra makes the yarn feel ever so soft and luxurious. I like to knit sweaters and shawls and other projects from sock yarn I always feel like this yarn is too pretty to waste on socks. Especially having to go through all that effort to buy this stuff. I wrote about them at the Sock Summit, where they sold all they had in 5 minutes. "Oooooh I want more Bugga...."

I was up bright and early at the designated time (6 am) and was able to grab these colors:

I was thinking about doing a "shadow knitting" project, either a top down sweater or a shawl of some sort. I'll have to see what they look like in person. I am currently knitting 3 top down projects all based on my top down knitting classes I teach.

There is good progress with The "Piros Bogár" but I wish I just had one more skein, I want to keep knitting.




What's the pattern? Here it is on a size 4 needle, all garter stitch with a M1 increase.

Knit and walk and ..... get out of the chair knitting by Cat Bordhi

I love this video. Cat is one of the most fun knitting ladies I know. Very soon I will be spending a week with Cat and I'll be on the ferry knitting and walking headed for one of the islands in Puget Sound where Cat lives.

There is also a little surprise serenade by one of the knitting ladies at this yarn store in Washington.





Here are some pictures of the island I took last year.

The Puget Sound (pronounced /ˈpjuːdʒɪt/) is a sound or complex of inland marine waterways in the northwestern part of Washington, United States, extending from the eastern end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca south to the head of the sound at the state capital of Olympia. It branches out from Admiralty Inlet and Deception Pass in the north to Olympia, Washington in the south.[1] The term is also used to mean the general region of the sound, including the Seattle metropolitan area, home to about 4.2 million people.

Do you knit?

I love the Yarnharlot's blog, I think Stephanie is just a very funny person and love what she has to say. Especially having met her a few times and spending a bit of time with her at the Sock Summit I appreciate her sense of humor and she knits like the wind. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee has a number of books out and she travels a lot promoting her books and teaching how to knit faster.

I took her class because I want to knit faster even though I thought I knitted fairly efficiently, the Continental method, during class she timed us and it turns out I was just average. Burst my bubble, but as we all know it's the "journey" not the destination. Knitting is such a zen exercise, and at the end you get a prize. In today's entry on the Yarnharlot's blog she writes about somebody remarking about her knitting and it reminded me of what happened to me the other day.

I was sitting at Starbuck's all by myself having a cup of much needed afternoon pick me up almost $5 dollars cup of coffee and pulled out my little socks that I always have going in my purse to knit. Everybody is busy at Starbuck's working away on their laptops, or pretending to be working on something so very important, and I am listening to my knit pod cast and knitting. When a lady comes walking over to me and asks me the following "Do you knit?".

No I say, this is a new form of meditation, I listen to meditation music and try and pull loops through with these needles and this string and all the while I count how many loops I have finished. You should try it sometimes it is amazing new form of meditation and when you finish you amazingly get a pair of socks and then you start all over again. That is what I felt like saying but I actually asked her if she was interested in learning how to knit because it's so much fun. Come to the yarn store I teach people how to knit there and I gave her a card: Compatto Yarn Salon in Santa Monica.

How to knit a top down sweater November 4, 11, 18th Wednesdays from 12-2pm give them a call and sign up. 310-453-2130

And on Fridays in November I will be teaching up in Weschester by the airport the following classes:

• November 6th from 11 am to 1 pm "Fearless Finishing"
• November 13th from 11 am to 1 pm "Short Rows"
• November 20th from 11 am to 1 pm " Moebious"

If you want to sign up send me an eMail: bananaknits@gmail.com

In the next couple of days I'll tell you more about the classes I have put together and teaching.

P.S. about the Sock Summit I want a "do-over", will there be another Sock Summit? If you read this Steph & Tina I would so love that.

During the Sock Summit they asked for volunteers to help out so I volunteered after all it was to do with knitting and I love to help out. One of the volunteer jobs I had was to be Stephanies helper during the book signing. Which meant I got to hang around and collect all the goodies people brought Stephanie and got to hear her conversations with each fan. I think this was one of the best jobs, her quick wit is amazing and had me entertained and fascinated how many fans the Yarnharlot has. Here are some pictures from the event and in this first picture I found from one of the fans blogs (sorry I don't remember the url) but there I am sitting right behind having a great time.

The missing sock syndrome

I've written about this before, about how one sock always disappears. I called it the one sock syndrome. I've gone as far as declaring that I am only knitting one sock and felt that they do not have to match. But that has not gone well, it feels weird to have two different types of socks. But I digress.

I posted about this a while back when I thought that the washing machine ate my sock, because I kept ending up with one sock and the matching sock simply disappeared nowhere to be found. Once I started knitting socks this problem seemed to be solved, the socks were so precious because of the amount of work and expense that went into them I was keeping a close eye on the laundering process. But as time went by I started to have a large collection of socks, it turned out that I love knitting socks so I have lots of them now and I have gotten a bit lazed about keeping an eye on these socks.

The problem persisted and I am still fighting the one disappearing sock syndrome. Then this morning I was out in the garden and one of my dogs the older one was digging to bury something. She usually buries cookies or chewies so I did not think anything of it. My son came out to join me for coffee outside in my bamboo garden and he says "Mom do you see what FeeFee is burying?" and to my shock and horror she has one of my socks and she is digging to bury it!

The dog is making my socks disappear not the washing machine! All this time I blamed the machine and it's the dog!

Who me? I did not do it! See how cute and innocent I look?

Why I knit socks when you can buy them for a couple of bucks?
And here are my top ten reasons why I knit socks:

1. You can never have too many socks
2. They are pretty
3. They are functional
4. Nothing feels better on your feet than a pair of new hand knit socks
5. I can make any color any style
6. It's a small project and I can take it with me anywhere
7. Why take it with me because I hate to waste time. There is so few hours in the day.
8. When waiting in line I can knit my socks (market, bank etc...)
   
9. Keeps my feet comfy and warm when it's cold
10. Because I love them

There are many other reasons most of which most of my non knitting friends do not understand but this is a knitting blog so I will keep writing about my sock obsession.

SeaSocks - Cruising the high seas knitting socks
Sock Summit - Join 5,000 fellow sock knitters from all over the world at the Portland Convention Center
Travel to Friday Harbor - to knit socks on an island for a week

Urban Bandit

1. One Chopped Yellow Onion
2. One Chopped Jalapeno Pepper
3. One tablespoon of Cayenne Pepper

Boil ingredients for 20 minutes in two quarts of water. Then let it cool and strain the mixture through cheesecloth. You can apply this with a pesticide sprayer or a spray bottle. This will deter just about any animal from an area where it is applied. The only draw back is that it only lasts for three to five days.

About 3 or 4 in the morning I've been getting a knock on my bedroom window. The first time it happened it scared the sh......t out of me and I jumped grabbed the flashlight. And to my horror/relief it was an animal not a human. The huge masked face was staring at me with it's little hand in a fist knocking on my window and I swear it was smiling.

I grabbed one of my longer knitting needles and tapped on the window while shining the light at it and sure enough it ran away. But then it got up on top of the roof and started dancing. It sounded like a two year old running barefoot. Now I'm awake and have the lights on it's too early to get up yet I can't sleep because this little bastard is running around in the yard banging on things and having a great party.

As soon as it was time I called my Local Animal Control asking for help, a friend told me that you guys can get me a trap and maybe we could trap this animal and you can take it and put it somewhere more conducive for wild animals than my back yard and roof. No we do not have traps anymore we will send you instructions, and they sent me the above recipe.

In the mean time the raccoon and I have bonded and wave at each other almost every night. This disturbs my sleep and I'm getting a lot of knitting done in the middle of the night. My dogs have lots of fleas, I walk around with dark circles and drinking a lot of coffee!

I just wonder how long this will last? As if I did not have enough other problems now I have this!

Any suggestions?

ps. Maybe it was not smiling after all.

Too many Tweets!

Tweeting is a lot of fun especially keeping track of friends you would not talk to on such a regular basis yet it sort of keeps you in touch. But.... yes there is a but ..... I feel another pet peeve coming on ..... I follow several people some I know personally and some I just like and love to see what they have to say.

What comes to mind is a commercial that runs in this area about some teen agers telling their parents to stop tweeting so much. "I know you are on the patio and sitting on a chair" do I need to know every detail? But why are people doing this? I tweet but quite frankly I don't have that much to say. My life is rather on the boring side, I'm knitting, I'm cleaning, I'm doing the dishes, I'm working in the garden etc. I am sure actually I am positive nobody wants to know such details about my life nor do I want to know such details about other people either.

I guess this is an art when too much is too much. As they say in my neighborhood "Too Much Information!"

I've been following Lance Armstrong and it was kind of fun to follow him around the tour de France but enough is enough!

Stop it Lance! I may have to delete you! Five pages of this is really too many tweets!

The dreaded knitting boredom has set in....

Oh no the KB's are creeping in with my two main projects I'm working on. Don't misunderstand I've never been a monogamous knitter, I've always been kind of fickle. Actually I'm always amazed that I finish projects. I start out with great enthusiasm at the beginning, it starts with the yarn most of the time or sometimes just a need for a piece that I feel I should have for my wardrobe, once in a while a gift or two or charity knitting.

In the summer time I like to knit little cotton camisole's like the "Easy Breezy" top I made last month. The fiber content is cotton/rayon mix so it's nice and cool and very functional. Other times I may decide that I need a new sweater to wear for some trip coming up or some event. It's always fun to have a new piece of clothing to wear.

So the project usually is dictated by need, function and what materials are available. After the stash I got at the Sock Summit amazingly I was able to find 4 skeins of Bugga. Beginner's luck I think, since then I keep looking at Sanguine Gryphon's site and I do not see anything but "SOLD OUT" red signs.

The progress has moved along very nicely until now when I was sidetracked by some new yarn. This Bugga yarn is very nice oh but look at that colorful Blue Moon Socks that Rock yarn I also got and love. It's so colorful and I have 3 skeins, what to make? I know it's sock yarn but it would be a shame to make socks from this beautiful yarn. And besides the Bugga project has hit a design snag, I have to decide how long and what kind of edge to do. I think I have to let it rest a bit and start something new.

I love to knit caps and buy hats, somehow I never or very seldom wear hats or knitted caps I'm always attracted to them to buy or knit. Here is my latest design, and as you can see I'm still working out the details. When I finish I'll get somebody to take a picture of me wearing it, in these pictures it looks a bit small but in person it does fit very nicely.

That is if I could stop making iPhone pouches.... but I digress and will tell you about those in another post.

Pet Peeve

"A pet peeve (or pet hate) is a minor annoyance that an individual identifies as particularly annoying to them, to a greater degree than others may find it."
Wikipedia

I must confess I have several of these some annoy me more than others but this one REALLY annoys me. Black background with white lettering web page. I can not read them, I usually just skip those kind of pages unless it's something that I'm really interested in and then I make my computer read it to me.

I can not look at the screen because it hurts my eyes and I always feel like screaming at the web designer to tell them how stupid this is and it does not look "cool" or "artsy" anything of the sort.

So what, exactly, is my complaint? If I don’t like the design of a site, I don’t have to visit it. Well yes, but there is a lot of interesting content on some sites that use inverted colors. I just stop visiting. It’s a shame, but my eyes simply can’t take the strain. Did I say it hurts my eyes yes and it gives me a headache!

The reason I thought of this is because there is a gal I met on one of my knitting excursions, Jamie from Chicago "the Yarnsnob" and I would love to read her blog but each time I visit there it is black background with white text. I won't even talk about the animation that keeps moving on the right side that's for another day another rant. Thank you for letting me vent.

A knitting guild

I was invited to come and join a knitting guild a couple of years ago, I liked the idea so I went to check it out. There are two guilds in my area one meets in El Segundo and the other meets in Mar Vista. For those of you who are not familiar with Los Angeles both El Segundo and Mar Vista are part of Los Angeles because L.A. is not like a "real city". We are a patchwork of little areas, like Venice Beach, Santa Monica, West Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Hollywood, etc..... even Malibu is part of the greater Los Angeles area. L.A. is HUGE you can really see this when landing at LAX at night the lights start and you are flying almost a half hour to reach the airport. It is a beautiful sight to see all the lights shimmering below.

We also have lots of people who live here and because we are so big we need our cars to get around. Public transportation just never works out for us, we are too dependent on our cars and I must say it's damn convenient. I'm not sure what this does to the environment or any of the numerous negatives that come with owning and driving a car but such as it is in Los Angeles.

I tell you all this because the traffic and getting around becomes part of life, I don't like traffic and I don't want to drive far distances to go to meetings etc. The Sand & Sea Knitting Guild used to meet out in Malibu, and it was a lovely drive up the coast with the magnificent Pacific Ocean and beaches, movie star homes etc. I really enjoy that drive except when it become bumper to bumper traffic down the Pacific Coast Highway. So I deemed this guild to be "geographically undesireable".

I always thought that it was called the Malibu Guild, and now I realize that it's formal name is the Sand & Sea Knitting Guild. For some reason they lost their meeting room and had to move and to my advantage they moved only a few miles from my home. It takes me 5 minutes to get to the church where they meet. I get to go through the Santa Monica Airport "Cloverfield" a small but noisy airport a couple of miles from the beach. I've always loved this airport there are so many interesting things there.

I really like meeting with other knitters and the benefits a guild can offer, such as their extensive knitting book library, the educational programs they offer and not to forget the raffle and lunch. It's only $25 dollars a year so I joined. There are many very talented knitters at this guild I've seen some really beautiful projects shared. This year one of our new members (my friend Olga) won 1st place at the Los Angeles County Fair for a beautiful sweater she knitted.

Here is a bag I won in the raffle, I'm so easy I was happy as could be when I won this. I don't know what I did before I had this, I am using it every day now.

"Visitors are welcome to attend the monthly Guild meeting which is held on the second Saturday of each month from 11:00 am until 1:30 pm at St Andrew's Lutheran Church, 11555 National Bl., Los Angeles."

Last month I was lucky and won two great grab bags in the monthly raffle. How this works is when you win something the next month you are supposed to bring something equal in value and it gets raffled off.... the raffle tickets cost 3 for a dollar I think and you can put your ticket in a bag of the item you may want. You can put all your tickets in one bag or whatever you choose. This system is a lot better than just having a raffle because often you would win something you may or may not want. I won this wonderful little bag, for small projects and a kit to knit a purse. I spent a gran total of 3 dollars. Now next time I will take some new items that I have in my "gift" drawer.

I love supporting my local yarn stores and my knitting guild, spreading the word about knitting and how much fun it is just trying to get others addicted like the rest of us. We are after all just "yarn pushers".